By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

Published: July 1, 2006

Bernard B. Kerik, who often traveled with a large entourage when he was New York City police commissioner, walked into a mostly empty courtroom in the Bronx yesterday, accompanied only by lawyers and a few friends.

Mr. Kerik came in quickly and sat at the defense table in the high-ceilinged room paneled in polished oak. He had been fingerprinted and photographed about an hour earlier and was now set to plead guilty to two misdemeanors: failing to report a loan and accepting a gift -- renovations to his apartment worth $165,000.

The man who once ran the nation's largest police force had become ''like every other perp,'' in the words of Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn of the city's Department of Investigation, who along with the Bronx district attorney, Robert T. Johnson, oversaw the investigation that led to the plea.

Mr. Kerik perched on the edge of his seat and seemed restless. He fidgeted with his knees, wiggling them slightly beneath the table, as he waited to make his admissions -- words that were carefully drafted in weeks of talks between his lawyers and prosecutors -- before Justice John P. Collins of State Supreme Court.

He wore a dark blue suit with an American flag pin in his lapel. No family members were present, nor were any of the retinue of officials he had met in his 14 years as a detective and a city official, a curious absence in a world where officers and police unions sometimes pack courtrooms to show their support for accused brethren.

In a brisk proceeding, Mr. Kerik spoke briefly and quietly. He acknowledged accepting the renovations in late 1999 and in 2000 from a large New Jersey contractor, Interstate Industrial Corporation, which has been accused of having ties to organized crime, an accusation it has repeatedly denied. He said he also talked to city officials and Trade Waste regulators about the company, which was seeking a license from the city. At the time, he was the city's correction commissioner.

''I admit that I took a gift from the Interstate companies or a subsidiary, and thinking they were clean, I spoke to city officials about Interstate on two occasions and on another occasion permitted my office to be used for a meeting between Trade Waste authorities and representatives of Interstate,'' Mr. Kerik said.

Under the plea, Mr. Kerik, who has a security consulting business, will pay $221,000 in fines and penalties for accepting the renovations and failing to report the loan -- $28,000 from a friend, the real estate developer Nathan Berman -- to the Conflict of Interest Board.

The agreement, which ended an exhaustive 18-month grand jury investigation by the offices of Mr. Johnson and Ms. Hearn, focused on Interstate and Mr. Kerik's relationship with the company, allowed him to avoid jail time, more serious bribery charges and a felony conviction.

It was nonetheless a stunning fall for Mr. Kerik, 50, who began his remarkable ascent in city government in 1993. Then a third-grade police detective, he became a volunteer bodyguard and chauffeur for Rudolph W. Giuliani in his mayoral campaign. After his election, Mr. Giuliani appointed him to a high-level post in the Correction Department, where he rose to the commissioner's office. The mayor later made him police commissioner, a post he held at the time of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

At a news conference with Mr. Johnson at his office after the plea, Ms. Hearn sought to make clear that Mr. Kerik was treated like a criminal. ''He was arrested and booked, plain and simple,'' she said, ''just like every other perp who gets arrested and processed by the agencies that he used to lead. Make no mistake about it, Mr. Kerik now has a criminal record.''

Mr. Kerik's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, called Ms. Hearn's comments hyperbole, saying that Mr. Kerik had not been processed through central booking like a common criminal and had been afforded the opportunity to be processed in the district attorney's office and to walk to court.

''The lack of professionalism exhibited by that statement proves her to be bitter that her investigation fell short,'' he said.

Mr. Kerik seemed unrepentant when he stood in front of a cluster of reporters and television cameras on the sidewalk in front of the Bronx courthouse.

''You know, it's funny; over the last year and a half I've watched and listened as people have picked apart my 30-year career in fighting crime and fighting injustice and tried to destroy everything I've ever done,'' he said.

When a reporter asked if he was sorry, Mr. Kerik, who had finished his remarks and had not planned to take questions, turned from the cameras and said to one of his lawyers, ''Let's go.''

He climbed into a black chauffeur-driven sedan and was driven away.

At the news conference, Mr. Johnson said that the prosecutors had initially weighed more serious charges, but that the nature of the evidence, the difficulty of proving the quid pro quo and legal questions about the statute of limitations prevented them from going forward. Ms. Hearn credited reporting in The Daily News with prompting the investigation in December 2004 after Mr. Kerik withdrew his nomination for homeland security secretary.